The Portraitists

A conversation with Carolina Tangassi, a Mexican figurative artist currently practicing in Mexico City. Tangassi comes from a long line of artists and creatives, a lineage that shaped her sensibilities from an early age. As a girl, her primary pursuit was kinetic expression in the form of ballet and figure skating—but an unexpected exhibition of her paintings at the age of 17 quietly redirected th...

A conversation with Beau Carnes, an American figurative artist currently practicing in Denver, Colorado. Carnes grew up as an enthusiast of painters and paintings, however, dedicated himself to the pursuit of music, and later creative marketing. In both of these disciples, Carnes developed an appreciation for the execution of the intent via a process of technical know-how. Carnes was able to prove...

A conversation withJohanna Bath, a German figurative artist currently practicing in Hamm, Germany. After stumbling into visual art as a young adult, Bath’s life took a turn that suspended her from accessing both her true emotions and the potential of her full efforts. Bath would eventually liberate herself from these circumstances - dedicated to her practice, and dedicated to her authenticity. Bat...

A conversation with Raul Sisniega, a Mexican figurative artist currently in residency in Roswell, New Mexico. Sisniega was raised in Mexico City - his parents spurred him to follow a straight and narrow path to white-collardom. Sisneiga’s relationship with his parent’s expectation and his artistic practice faced its reckoning in his mid-twenties, when he decided to drop out of law school and pursu...

A conversation with Diego Zelaya, a Mexican figurative artist currently practicing in Mexico City. Zelaya had a unique upbringing - the 3rd and youngest son of revolutionaries-turned-scholars. Zelaya’s family highly prioritized education, and at the age of 16, Zelaya transplanted to a niche institution in the UK. While there, Zelaya’s interest in visual arts flourished amongst the collections of B...

A conversation with Trevor Wisecup, a Virginian photographer currently practicing in New York City, New York. Wisecup grew up with an interest in visual arts, first captivated by the visuals and story-telling of video games. Wisecup’s aesthetic would be developed by a love for vintage artifacts - from VHS tapes, to thrifted suites, to analog cameras. After unintentionally relocating to New York ci...

A conversation with Itzamna Reyes, a Mexican figurative artist currently practicing in Mexico City. Reyes’ childhood dream of becoming an artist was supported by his family - particularly his grandmother who had a friendship with a career artist. From humble begins, to graduating art college, Reyes was evolving as quickly as Mexico City around him - yet his artistic focus was unclear. Reyes took a...

A conversation with Yasmine Elgamal, a Roman figurative artist currently practicing in Mecklenburg, Germany. Elgamal was introduced to studio art as a young student, and contrary to the pessimism of the peers of her working class suburb, was steadfast in her ambition to become an artist. Disillusioned with the philosophies of the academy system, Elgamal forged her own path - reading keystones of a...

A conversation with Ramiro Sanchez, an Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist currently practicing in Florence, Italy. Sanchez began his creative career as a gifted music student, participating in choir and the viola at a selective Jesuit school in Venezuela, Niños Cantores del Zulia. Inspired by the rich practice of Latin-American muralism, Sanchez pivoted to visual arts at the age of 13. Through ex...

A conversation with Amy Dury, an English figurative artist currently practicing in Brighton, England. Dury’s art education was detoured in her youth, but through a series of adventures Dury graduated from her preferred Glasgow School of Art with a degree in printmaking. Like many artists, Dury’s art career was suspended by the responsibilities of parenthood and sourcing a stable income, but when D...

A conversation with Aysha Nagieva, a Russian-born artist living and practicing in London, England. Nagieva spent her early girlhood in Moscow, discomforted by the rigidity of the traditional Russian artistic expectation. After transplanting to London, Nagieva’s interest in unfettered expression and fashion design developed into an artistic practice that nods to her Russian roots, while expanding b...

A conversation with Lorenna Lannes, a Brazilian figurative artist practicing in New York, New York. Lannes’ work focuses primarily on capturing and exploring the impression of covert signals of emotion and intention - the “energy” a person emits beneath verbal and physical language. To paraphrase Lannes’ description - these sub-physical signals are the most honest, and learning to interpret them c...

A conversation with Luke Hannam, an English figurative artist based in Rye, England. Hannam is a multidisciplinary artist - raised with a foundation in improvisational jazz - Hannam’s drawing and painting practice resemble this ‘ordered chaos’. Hannam is deeply interested in timeless motifs - the warrior, the fertility goddess; the dove of peace. As Hannam describes, the dove’s flight - it’s stren...

A conversation with Sonja Haroldson, an American figurative artist based in New York City, and currently at residence in Wilton, Connecticut. Haroldson is a multidisciplinary artist whose output spans music, sculpture, drawing, and painting. Haroldson’s two dimensional work manifests in a style similar to architectural drafting - graphic lines, economic blocking, and simplified palettes - with ene...

A conversation with Jaron Gyger, a Swiss figurative artist currently practicing in Berlin, Germany. Gyger’s practice acts as a type of journal, illustrating life experiences or emotional anecdotes. Gyger’s works are rendered in a style that lands in the intersection of kinetic abstraction, cubism, and figurativism. Gyger’s images take an unabashed approach to genuinity, prioritizing honesty and co...

A conversation with Kuda Mushangi - born Zimbabwe, and raised in England - Mushangi is a figurative artist currently practicing in London, England. Mushangi immigrated to the UK with his family at the age of 9. Now a practicing architect, Mushangi rediscovered his boyhood passion for visual art as an escape from the rigidity of his career and its requirements. Mushangi is a relatively new painter,...

A conversation with Kate Powell, an American multi-disciplinary artist currently practicing between Tacoma, WA and Philadelphia, PA. Powell is a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ low-residency MFA class of 2024.  Powell’s creative output spans music, sculpture, drawing, and painting. Powell’s subjects span portraiture, first-person observation, and still lifes of found objects....

A conversation with Matt Murphy, an English portrait painter currently practicing in Brighton, England. After a childhood fascination with art, and graduating A-Levels, Murphy took a long-term hiatus from his practice. While living in Vietnam, marooned by the Covid Pandemic, Murphy began working with the regionally popular media, water colors. This new media inspired a different process, which car...

A conversation with Debora Koo, a Korean-American figurative painter currently practicing in Charlotte, North Carolina. Koo received her B.A at Smith College in Massachusetts, and her M.F.A. from Ewha University in Seoul, Korea. Koo’s work explores themes of otherism, romantic despair, and nostalgia. Koo’s iconic cake paintings offer a sense of indulgence and familiarity that pull the viewer into...

A conversation with Cory Swenson-Scott, an American figurative painter practicing in California and abroad. Swenson-Scott received his Master of Fine Art from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and has collected an expansive series of accolades in the California area, including a repeat annual showcase at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Swenson-Scott has been awarded various res...

A conversation with Stelios Pupet, a Greek figurative artist that practices in Athens, Greece. Pupet developed his artistic practice as a young graffiti artist running from the authorities in the Athenian Metro. Pupet retained these foundations as he evolved into his fine art practice. Pupet depicts the human form, often female, often obscured or masked, or tranquil in an urban/suburban gardenscap...

A conversation with Steve Cannon, an Irish figurative artist practicing in Galway, Ireland. Cannon’s work remained steadily focused on human portraiture. Cannon captures his subjects with prying attention - resulting in hyper honest and vulnerable product - described as beginning “[torn apart]”. Cannon’s work has been frequently platformed by the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Society of Po...

A conversation with Zboik Czajkowski, a Polish figurative artist that practices between the cities of Berlin, Germany and Warsaw, Poland. Czajkowski is a prominent figure in the street art and graffiti scene - his career taking him from London to Tokyo. Czajkowski’s current practice is balanced between large-scale mural commissions, which he executes with a small team, and that he pursues as an op...

A conversation with Wylee Risso, a figurative painter currently practicing in Portland, OR. Risso’s body of work spans an eclectic assortment of subjects - images untethered by audience-focused theming, but instead images that strike the artist - the refracted lightshow of a dishpit, or a single frame of a cult-classic. Risso translates these images into a signature style characterized by a frenzy...

A conversation with Rustam Hasanov, a Russian-American figurative artist currently practicing in Atlanta, GA. Hasanov is a multidisciplinary artist with a career in animation and character design. Inspired to rediscover the artistic passions of his youth - nonreactive to audience or commercialism - Hansanov has refocused on a ritualistic, and non-commodified practice. Hasanov creates rapid express...